Wounded & Frightened
by Zetara
Summary: Belle was alone at the library stacking books at midnight when she hears a scratching at her door and a desperate...howl...for help? This is a one-shot about Belle being there for her friend when she is hurt and has no where to hide after some new arrival is in town and on the hunt for her head. P.S. I don't ship them, I just think they had a great dynamic as friends K paranoic


As Belle finished cleaning the shelves and organizing the book stack in the floor by alphabetical order, the clock was announcing the midnight. Usually it didn't take her so long to do this, but she was pleasingly enjoying herself, away from everything and everyone, just her and her books as company. She exhaled and looked thru the window contemplating the bright full moon that shined down on her. She smiled and laid the book down taking her cup of tea instead. Looking around she had the impulse to talk to someone, but again, she was by herself and the books. Her smile dropped, but perhaps tomorrow she could talk about the great ending of the book with someone at the Dinner.

Just when she was about to continue with her work, she heard some scratching at the door.

"Sorry, library is closed" she called out but the door kept on moving. Belle walked to the entrance spying thru the glass as she heard a howl "Ruby?" she opened the door and the wolf stormed inside knocking some books on her way, hiding under the counter "Ruby, what's wrong?" she heard some voices on the outside and immediately closed the door locking it. When she looked back to where Ruby was, she saw a trace of blood leading to the shaking figure under the counter, but of course she could had eaten a rabbit or something.

"Ruby, what happened, Are you alright?" she kneeled down at the same eye sight as the wolf. Belle tried to grab her paw to guide her outside, but the beast recoiled barking once before licking its paw and whimper. "Are you hurt?" she laid completely on the ground getting herself as close as she could. Looking up close, she saw the scratches on the wolf's face and many silver tipped arrow heads deep down in her sides. "Who did this to you?" she asked softly trying not to show the anger in her voice looking at Ruby howl under her breath clutching into herself as a shell.

Her heart ached at the sight of her friend this frighten, so she stretched her hand once more petting her forehead. Ruby lowered her head and whimpered once more "Come out, please. Let me help you" she caressed behind the ears "You came to me, so allow me to see those nasty scars" The wolf titled its head and walked out slowly, tenting the surrounding until she could know it was safe.

"Come here" Belle drove her into an embrace caressing the fur up and down, calming the shaky wolf as every single muscle on the creature trembled with fear. "Come with me, I'm going to take those awful arrows out of you" she guided the limping wolf to her room where she feed the fire on the chimney with more wood.

Ruby settled next to the fire, constantly licking at the left paw silently sobbing once in a while.

When Belle finally got back she had a pair of tweezers and ethylic alcohol along with other medical supplies. Ruby's head snapped up at the sight of the instruments as Belle approached her.

"Easy there" she kneeled next to her putting a newspaper under and laid the wolf down. "Is going to be alright, it will only hurt for a minute" she said in soothing voice "Now, I'm going to pull out the first one, seems like the worst of it, so stay with me" she said in pleading voice. Belle slid one hand into the neck pinning it to the ground as the other wandered in the side judging how deep into the flesh the arrow head was. Taking the tweezers with firm hand, she grabbed the first one making Ruby flinch and twist forcing Belle to grip tighter and pin her down with all her strength as she pulled the long silver tipped arrow off of her skin rapidly applying the ethylic alcohol in cotton pressuring down the wound that was fast pouring blood.

The wolf kept on trying to rise once more and hide, but all the movement would only hurt her further and Belle knew that. She hushed her tenderly caressing where no arrow was and tried to soothe her "I will ease the pain, I promise but you have to stay still" she murmured looking into the yellow eyes.

The wolf stopped wrestling a way out and laid on the ground breathing heavily as Belle patched the cotton against the fur and proceeded to the next arrow. The wolf tried to lay still and reduce the howling to small whimpers "Thank you" she said continuing using both hands now. More than once Ruby flinched, but when she regained control she just returned to the original position and allow Belle to continue.

Belle had read somewhere, that only humans had the capability to cry tears, and she didn't know if that was true, but seeing Ruby struggle with dry eyes made her think so. Once she shifted back to human form, she was almost sure Ruby would shred the tears, the wolf couldn't, and she didn't want to see her friend this hurt again. She could only wonder who would be capable of injuring her this bad. Just someone whom knew all too well about wolves would do such thing.

Finally Belle tried to wrap a bandage around the paw that was bothering so much the wolf, but when she tried to grab it, Ruby's head snapped almost biting her hand, but luckily, Belle had retracted fast enough and Ruby had caught herself in the act before she could capture her fingers between fangs. Ruby pushed herself away from Belle and close to the fire to avoid hurting her, she couldn't be trusted and coming to her had been a terrible mistake, she had put Belle's life in danger just because she had been afraid and didn't knew where else to hide.

Ruby clutched the paw under and started at the fire "Come on Ruby, let me take a peek at that" she came near again caressing lovingly bringing some relief to the burden of guilt placed upon Red.

Belle once more took the damaged paw in her hand and started to roll a bandage around without applying too much pressure into it. Once she was done, Ruby retrieved it close to her chest starting to pick at the white fabric.

"Don't" Belle warned going to bed "Come" she invited the wolf up to the cozy mattress, but the wolf just overlooked at it and exhaled tiredly cuddling into itself settling to sleep.

Belle sighted smiling sadly at the wolf. So instead, she took the blanket of her bed towards the floor wrapping herself and the wolf in it. "You lost too much blood, you might get cold" she hugged tightly laying her head against her, looking at the fire, already exhausted. The wolf titled its head looking amused at the librarian that fearlessly embraced it. With a small shove of its head, it insisted for her to go back to bed, but instead Belle hugged tighter and caressed warmly the wounded paw "I'm staying" was the last she said before drifting into sleep.


End file.
